


Stories

by ImUpToNoGood



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImUpToNoGood/pseuds/ImUpToNoGood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dobby likes clothes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stories

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the Harry Potter Last Author Standing. Their rules: Write in less than two weeks, no beta reading allowed, less than 1,000 words. It is a bit of sentimental silliness. I am posting it because it will be the 25,000th Harry Potter work posted, and that amuses me.

Every day Dobby had the same problem.

Dobby looked into the cabinet where he slept. Perhaps cabinet was a bit too fancy of a word for his home: it was an alcove with a curtain draped in front of it. Inside was a nest of old sheets. They had been Gryffindor sheets, but were thinning beyond the point where they could be used for witches and wizards, beyond even the ability of a house elf’s magic to renew them. Dobby had laid claim to them as soon he discovered they were headed for the bin. Harry Potter had slept on those sheets. It was bold of Dobby to sleep nested in those sheets, as if he were worthy, but Dobby fancied it gave him some of the courage of the great Harry Potter.

Hanging on the wall behind the bed was a black sock, the first sock Harry Potter had given him. Dobby knew it was Harry Potter who had given him this gift, even though it had come from the hand of his bad once-master. He could think bad thoughts about his once-master now, and it was that sock that made it possible. He still had to fight against punishing himself if he said bad words about his old masters aloud, but Dobby could think these thoughts in his head!

Dobby had draped some yarn (found in the Gryffindor common room) around the sock, as if it were a picture in a fine wizard’s house. When he sniffed it, Dobby thought he could still smell the scent of Harry Potter on that sock. Dobby would never actually wear that sock, not anymore. It was too important. He’d worn it at first, as was his right as a free elf, but as soon as he saw the first thinning threads, he’d retired it to the wall.

More clothes had followed. When Dobby came to work at Hogwarts, he got a Hogwarts tea towel to wear, complete with the Hogwarts coat of arms. The shield was placed as appropriate for a tea towel, which meant it hung just below his waist. Dobby’s insides danced when he looked at it. Dobby got to work _and_ be free, and it was his first garment as a working free elf. It wasn’t properly ‘clothing’, since all the house elves had it, but it gave Dobby something in common with the others.

Folded at the top of Dobby’s nest was a maroon jumper that Harry Potter’s Wheezy had given Dobby. It was big and soft, and reached below Dobby’s knees. It added a good strong colour to whatever Dobby wore over it. It was the largest present Dobby had ever been given.

A shelf, made of an old storage box, had been piled with socks of all colours. Dobby loved looking at them. He especially liked the bright ones. There were two knobbly mustard-yellow socks Harry had given Dobby for a Christmas present, and two violet ones from Harry Potter’s Wheezy. They were the first presents Dobby had ever received, and they belonged entirely to Dobby! There were argyle socks that Professor Dumbledore had given him, and striped socks and polka-dotted socks. There was even one sock that was incredibly smooth and thin. Most of them had been knitted by Harry Potter’s friend Hermione Granger.

Dobby knew the other house elves didn’t like Hermione Granger, but she had given him more clothes than anyone else! Socks and hats and scarves. She’d knitted them to fit house elves, so they were all the right size. Dobby knew she made them for all of the elves at Hogwarts, trying to free them. The other elves didn’t want them, but Dobby did.

Perhaps Dobby should have told Hermione Granger that only clothes given by their owner would free them. The only person at Hogwarts who could free the elves was Professor Dumbledore, acting for the Castle. Professor McGonagall could do it if acting in Professor Dumbledore’s name. Dobby would have been freed long before if he could just pick up clothes left strewn around to be free. 

The other elves could sense the intent of the clothes they found. It terrorized them. They had only lasted three days cleaning Gryffindor Tower before the shock of finding house-elf-sized clothes wore down their nerves and they refused to return.

Dobby had never told Miss Hermione Granger that. He _liked_ cleaning Harry Potter’s home. He _liked_ the beautiful clothing Hermione Granger had made. They were bright, and bumpy, and they had odd spots where there were too many stitches or too few.

On top of the box of socks was another box turned sideways to be a shelf for the hats from Miss Granger. Next to it was an actual set of shelves. It had once been a small bookcase. It held a tea cosy, three scarves, seven ties—including a purple one with yellow snitches on it—and a pair of yellow and green mittens with yarn pompoms, strung together with a long knitted cord that Dobby often used as a belt. 

Every day after Dobby woke up, he washed himself, put on the tea towel he used as the first layer of clothes... and then looked at his shelves. How could he choose? Each sock, each mitten, each hat had its own story. Which stories would Dobby wear today?

He picked up an orange hat, and then set it aside for the tea cosy with the flowers knitted onto one side. Professor Dumbledore had given him the cosy, after receiving a new one from Professor McGonagall. Dobby put on the jumper from Harry Potter’s Wheezy, and layered three socks on each foot, one from Professor Dumbledore, one from Harry Potter, and one from Ron Weasley on one foot, and three from Hermione Granger on the other--the first ones he had found. He tied the mittens around his waist, and draped a scarf from Miss Luna Lovegood around his neck. 

He looked like a proper free elf now.


End file.
